I recently picked up a pair of Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. Here are my thoughts.
The good
This is really the bulk of the review, because almost everything about them is great.
Sound quality
I’m no audiophile, so I can’t offer a very informed judgement on this, but they sound awesome to me. The bass is particularly impressive for a pair of earbuds, at least for the bass test YouTube video I always look up when I get new headphones or speakers.
Noise cancelling
The ANC on these is best in class. I previously had a pair of EarFun Air Pro 3 earbuds, which were about a quarter of the price of these, and I thought they had pretty good ANC. Then I got the QC Ultras and realised what I’d been missing. The level of noise isolation is on a whole other level.
Partly that’s because of the ANC, and partly it’s because of the flexible silicone “stability band” that goes around the earbuds and fits snugly inside the ear, forming a good seal. There are three sizes of stability bands (and eartips) included, though the pre-fitted ones fit me perfectly straight out of the box.
Allegedly the ANC calibrates itself via a sound which plays when you put them in. I’d assumed that sound was just the earbuds’ way of saying “hello! I’m in your ear!”, but it’s actually measuring something about the shape of your ear. We can only hope Bose isn’t harvesting all this ear-shape data to sell to advertisers.
I live in Sydney and mostly get around by train. At certain times, like Friday and Saturday nights, the trains will be packed full of feral people making noise. But with these earbuds I can tune them out and pretend that we still live in a society.
Secure fit
The silicone seal also makes the earbuds stay in really well. With my old EarFuns, I’d often feel the right earbud starting to slip out. It was especially bad when I was running and I’d have to adjust it every few minutes to keep it in. Now I can run a marathon* with the QCs without having to adjust them once.
*I mean, I can’t, but you know.
Auto-pause/resume
When you remove one of the earbuds, whatever you’re listening to will automatically pause. I’m not sure how it knows you’ve removed it—probably a light sensor. When you pop it back in, the audio will auto-resume.
Another nice touch is that if you’ve pulled out just one earbud, the other earbud will automatically switch to aware mode (i.e. audio pass-through). This means you can easily stop to have a brief chat with someone without having to pull out both earbuds, and without the annoying feeling of only hearing them through one ear.
Immersive Audio
I don’t just mean that the audio is immersive, though it is. Immersive Audio is a setting that uses head position tracking to simulate having a pair of speakers around you, so if you turn your head the apparent position of the sound stays the same. How can a pair of headphones determine the position of your head? Tiny cameras? The world may never know. But it’s a pretty cool feature when I’m watching TV.
Modes
The Bose app lets you adjust the level of noise cancelling, either directly or via Modes. There are some pre-set modes including Quiet, Aware, Immersion, and Cinema. You can also create your own, and configure them for different situations.
You can star your most commonly-used modes, which makes them available for quick selection via a long-press on either earbud. The un-starred modes have to be selected via the app. That way you can set up as many modes as you like without having to cycle through all of them when you switch with long-press. It’s a pretty smart feature.
The mode called Run is a custom mode I created, which turns off noise control entirely so I can be aware of my surroundings when I’m out on a run. On that note: it’s a bit weird that there’s no pre-set “no noise control” mode. At first I thought there was actually no way to turn off noise control, i.e. you always needed either noise cancelling or noise pass-through enabled. I’ve even seen reviews online claiming this to be the case. But the option is right there in the mode settings.
One last weird thing about custom modes is that you can only choose from ten pre-defined names. Presumably this is because the headphones announce which mode they’re switching to when you use the long-press gesture, and they didn’t want to have to cram text-to-speech for arbitrary mode names into a pair of earbuds. So, when you’re creating your “Sacrificing goats to Satan” mode, you’ll need to call it “Walk” or something equally pedestrian.
The bad
They’re expensive
They’re A$449.95, which is a shit-ton of money for a pair of earbuds. I would never normally buy such expensive earbuds. Luckily I got mine essentially for free, for reasons I won’t go into but are definitely legal.
They’re kind of annoying to remove from the charging case
After having these for over a month, I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to grip these when I pull them from the case. I feel like I’m doing it wrong each time and I’m sure sooner or later I’ll drop one of them in the process.
The case is also bulkier than my old ones, which doesn’t really justify its own heading so I’m sneaking it into this section.
The app is flaky
Maybe once a week, the app just forgets that I’ve set up the headphones already and makes me add them again. I’ll look at my phone and the app has sprung up like a dog that’s farted itself awake, getting all up in my face about setting up the headphones for the sixth time. It doesn’t take very long to do, but it’s annoying and shouldn’t happen.
It could be connected to the fact that I haven’t created an account in the app. I don’t see why I should need an account to use a pair of headphones, and the app does present the option of using it without an account. But it’s framed as the lesser, shameful option.
So maybe this is their subtle punishment for my deviant account-free lifestyle. If I yield, and submit myself to the warm embrace of the Bose account, maybe the app will behave as it should. Still, I refuse. The accursed app hasn’t worn down my resolve just yet.
The verdict
There’s a reason why these buds are so expensive: they’re brilliant.
That said, the non-Ultra QC earbuds are also allegedly great and are significantly cheaper. They’re missing a few of the Ultra’s features, but those are just nice-to-haves, and the noise cancelling is almost as good. If I was paying completely out of my own pocket, that’s what I’d go for.
But if you want the best earbuds money can buy, or if you wind up in a situation where you have half a grand of store credit on a website that mostly sells things you don’t need right now but also sells the QC Ultras, as I did, then: I say go for it.